Change Your Brain Every Day - The Science of Oxidative Stress, with Dr. Martin Katz

Episode Date: June 10, 2020

If we look beyond the symptom-focused approach of western medicine, we quickly see that the real focus should be on how the systems in our bodies are functioning. As Dr. Martin Katz states, “The absence of disease is not health.” In this episode of The Brain Warrior’s Way Podcast, Dr. Katz and the Amens discuss how oxidative stress triggers an unhealthy response in your body, and how certain molecules such as sulforaphane can counterattack that process.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. In our podcast, we provide you with the tools you need to become a warrior for the health of your brain and body. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we have been transforming lives for 30 years using tools like brain spec imaging to personalize treatment to your brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceuticals to support the health of your brain and body. To learn more, go to Brainmd.com. Welcome back. We're here with our friend, Dr. Martin Katz. Everything you want to know about sulforaphanes and how you can use them to, you know, is one of the things to stay healthy. I always love natural ways to heal the brain,

natural ways to heal the body. One of my grandbabies that we've talked about, Emmy, has had developmental challenges. And sulforaphane is actually one of the strategies that her functional medicine doctor has used and has actually helped her with learning. And there's a number of studies with sulforaphane and the brain. But Martin, maybe you can review for us, what does this science say about how sulforaphane work and how might they help someone? Yeah, I mean, the science is tremendous. You know, sulforaphane came about through Johns Hopkins. It was founded by Lucian Zhang and Paul Talley back in 1992. And those guys were actually looking at inducers of cancer. And since that time, there's hundreds and hundreds of studies published on sulforaphane every year, you know, gradually ramped up. I think last year, there was something like 250 or two years ago,

there was something like 250 studies on sulforaphane. So the science is rich on sulforaphane. And it's a remarkable molecule in that it's actually a little bit pro-oxidant. So it actually stresses the cell to a certain degree, which people don't really understand. It's not in and of itself the antioxidant. It's working on upstream problems. And so, you know, we have, again, this idea of treating symptoms and here's a med for this and here's a med for this. But what would be great is if we could start focusing on something that has upstream capabilities. And a word that I absolutely love is something called pleiotropic because people come in with so many different things. I'm not sure exactly what they should

or shouldn't be taking. If there's a molecule that creates a pleiotropic effect, I'm pretty excited about it. Pleiotropic means this one molecule, sulforaphane, has a big impact. And the way it has a big impact when you ingest it, and again, it's very bioavailable, so it gets across the gut, it's getting into tissues, they found it in breast tissue, it gets across the blood-brain barrier, it's getting into brain. And as you pointed out, it helps people with a significant amount of brain issues, including depression and degenerative brain disorders. Great study on autism. But this molecule, sulforaphane, turns on something called NRF2. Now, NRF2 is yet another molecule that goes down to your nucleus and turns on something called

the antioxidant response element, which is, some people have estimated at the very least 200 genes, but possibly as many as 500 genes that are instrumental in decreasing your oxidative stress. And we can talk a little bit about oxidative stress. It's very, very important to understand oxidative stress. It helps with detox. We know we are living in a very toxic world. You know, just getting out in L.A. and breathing is a risk factor. New York, you know, Shanghai, all these big cities, lots of pollution problems. Great study on sulforaphane as it happens and decrease in benzene and acrolein, which are big in pollution. But anyway, so this antioxidant response element turns on all these genes

that have a lot to do, again, as I mentioned, antioxidation, detoxification, anti-inflammation. So we know about inflammation and the brain and joints and the pancreas and you name it. And then also with immune modulation response, which is a huge thing now with this pandemic. And so there's some studies that suggest that sulforaphane has an impact on natural killer cells, helping not only what's called the innate immune system, which is there, it's not very specific, it's going to help you deal with things up front, but also the adaptive immune system. And so it's a molecule that is vastly studied and has just so much data behind it with regard to all these disease processes which are making us sick.

If I could ask you, one of the ways I was trying to explain to the kids, because they're like, why are vegetables good for me? Why do I have to eat them, especially the dark green leafy ones, which kids don't like? And I was trying to explain it to them. And one of the ways it was explained to me is, okay, let me make this easy for you. And tell me if this is too simplified, or if you can add some into this. They're good for you because they're a little bit bad for you, meaning that they do put that little bit of stress on the cell, which causes your immune system to kick in. It causes you to fight all these bad things. So that's way oversimplified. But it causes a stimulative process to start kicking in. And so it's like this idea of hormesis almost. It's like when you ingest something that's a little bit, like greens have a little bit

of that toxic effect, it causes your body to go, wait, whoa, let's be on alert. And it decreases inflammation and fights back. Now, is that over? I mean, I know that's probably way oversimplified, but is that sort of the idea of what happens? Yeah. I mean, I definitely think that there are molecules in plants that are hormetic. And that's what you're describing hormesis. My favorite example of hormesis is exercise. So exercise, we all know doesn't feel great, right? It hurts, but we all

feel better after doing it. Why? Because it's a hormetic stress. It brings out the best in our cells by stressing them. So it creates mitophagy. We all love or should love the mitochondria. And so exercising, right, it's what creates energy, but so much more. And so this mitochondria with exercise can undergo changes. If there's a lot of oxidative stress, the mitochondria is not very healthy. And there are some studies showing sulforaphane supporting the health of the mitochondria. But if the mitochondria is not healthy, it's leaking oxygen. It's leaking things. That whole oxidative phosphorylation process, which gets you that energy is being broken down because you're not able to hold those electrons in place. Those electrons escape. And guess who loves electrons?

Oxygen. I talk to my kids and my patients even about the helc. Most people know who the helc is. And so it's like Dr. Banner and the helc. Oxygen as a compound is Dr. Banner. It's generally relaxed. It's not getting excited. But if it finds electrons, which it really likes, it becomes the Hulk. And what does the Hulk do? The Hulk smashes. It breaks down that cellular wall. It breaks down, you know, God forbid, DNA, that very thing that drives cell processing. So it's not good. And so it's funny you mentioned this. And again, this is a selfless plug. I actually wrote a kid's book. I haven't gotten it published yet. I've put it out to publishers. I haven't got anybody interested. Yeah, it's called You Are Incredibly

Awesome. Except I've left out the vowels. So it's Y, you know, just the R and then incredibly leaves out the I's and the E's. And so as you go through the book, each of those vowels are vegetables and fruits, and they help fill in the words. And so by the end of the book, I think it's, oh, or you, I can't remember what my last vowel is. You get the full sentence. Yeah. And the front cover, you know, if you hold it different ways, you see it. You are incredibly awesome. But if you're just looking at it, it makes no sense because it's just a Y.

The next word, just an R and then NCR. Yeah, that sounds really interesting. Yeah. I started talking to my kids about gardens and about composting and making sure that you're putting the best in. You're not going to put a Snickers bar in. And I was trying to think of these ways to help explain to my kids why they want to eat healthy. Because telling them to eat vegetables and fruits, it doesn't work. So if you have a cool

story, so I'm a part of this endurance team at Miller's at this local school, incredible endurance team. When they show up, people know it's for real. They're very, very good. And they're very interested in all things, nutrition. And these are teenagers in high school. And so they're a little ahead and they want to be the best. And so I go in there and talk to them and I'll ask one kid on one side of the room to tell a kid on the other side of the room something, but he tells me and I write it down without the vowels and the guy on the other side of the room has to figure it out. And it has to do with communication. And why that is so important is because our cells are communicating

all the time. We are a system. And if there's a breakdown in that communication, if there's a breakdown in that system, it's not going to be as healthy. It's not going to be thriving as much. And so that's this important idea of oxidative stress. Oxidative stress, which comes from, again, oxygen and this oxidative phosphorylation, this mitochondrial production of energy, which is unbelievably important. But the other thing that I did not get in medical school was that it's also creating these byproducts, these OH minuses, these oxygen radicals, these superoxide radicals, hydrogen peroxide, which actually communicate and signal if there's a problem. Now, within the cell, you have incredible antioxidants. Most of us

probably have heard of glutathione. It's produced within the cell. There's others. There's lots of others. Hemoxygenase, NQO1, superoxide dismutase, catalase. These are all big words, but suffice it to say they help to normalize or help to decrease that oxidative stress if you don't need to signal that the cell's in trouble. But if the cell's in trouble, if there's a virus or bacteria, or you just lacerated, you just caused a cut, and now you're bleeding out and you need to say, hey, I need help out here, or God forbid you had a heart attack because you weren't that healthy. You need to signal your cells to come and repair. And that cell signaling happens because of oxidative stress. So it's very important, but it's also, you've got to understand that it's

incredibly important that you balance it. Because if you don't, you're going to land up with disease. Sort of like inflammation. It's necessary, but not all the time. Exactly. And that's the difference between acute and chronic disease. Chronic disease is just letting this process go on and on. And so, you know, I mean, Lord, I have smokers who come into my office, this talking about the absence of diseases is not health. I have smokers who come into my office and say, Hey, I'm healthy. I'm like, what? No, you're not. I know. It's so funny when I hear people say that. Yeah. And that's why the scans we do are so helpful because you can see the damage they're doing to their brain. It's really hard to be healthy when you have a damaged brain. When we come back, I want us just to summarize sulforaphanes

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